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Spartanburg hosts Lindbergh
Ordinarily I stick to writing about Wofford history, with a little Methodist history thrown in for good measure. Mostly I leave Spartanburg-area history to my friend and neighbor Brad Steinecke and...
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The Civil War Begins – 150 years ago today
American historians and others today are commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter, the event that began the American Civil War. Of course, events long before...
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George H. W. Bush visits Wofford, 1980
Spartanburg has often been a stop on the presidential campaign trail, and Wofford has seen candidates drop by over the years. Former President Gerald R. Ford dropped in to meet classes and hold a...
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Dickens at 200
I heard on the radio this morning that today is Charles Dickens’ 200th birthday. My thoughts immediately went to the lock of his hair that is in my office safe. Yes, you read that right. Strange...
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How the Methodist Church split in the 1840s
This column appears in the February 2013 issue of the SC United Methodist Advocate. I thought that sharing some information about why the Methodist Church split before the Civil War would be...
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Seamus Heaney at Wofford
I’ve been digging in the files today for photos or clippings about Seamus Heaney’s visits to Wofford. The Nobel laureate in literature and arguably Ireland’s most famous literary figure of the present...
View ArticleFifty Years Ago
History happens on ordinary days. Most of the time, we don’t know when we get up in the morning that something earth-shaking is going to happen during the day. And that’s certainly how it must have...
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The letter to Nelson Mandela
I wanted to post this earlier this year, during the international period of mourning following the death of South African President Nelson Mandela. I knew this letter existed, but I couldn’t put my...
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Wofford and World War II
Last week, I published a new digital collection of World War II-era newspapers from the Wofford campus. Today, I have posted a collection of Wofford newsletters sent to alumni who were serving in the...
View ArticleHappy Birthday, Phi Beta Kappa
A long time ago, in a state not far away….. Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s oldest, and arguably its most prestigious honor society, was founded 238 years ago today, December 5, 1776, by 5 students at the...
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Spartanburg’s Centennial Pageant
I recently acquired this program, from the 1931 pageant commemorating the centennial of Spartanburg’s incorporation as a village. My student assistant digitized it recently and I’ve added it to...
View ArticleMethodists and World War I
This was my column for the April edition of the SC United Methodist Advocate This month marks the centennial of American entry into the First World War. On April 2, President Woodrow Wilson asked...
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World War One: At Home and Abroad
This fall, the Sandor Teszler Library has an exhibit on World War One at Home and Abroad in the library gallery. Most of the items in the exhibit come from the College’s Special Collections and...
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Gerald D. Sanders: Wofford’s War Poet
One of Wofford’s 1918 graduates, Gerald D. Sanders had written regularly for the Journal while a student. Shortly before his graduation, he found himself on the way to France as a member of the Allied...
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Remembering Wofford’s World War I fatalities
Today is Armistice Day – the 99th anniversary of the end of World War I. Seventeen Wofford graduates and students, including three graduates of Wofford’s Fitting School, died during the First World...
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Wofford and the Willie Earle trial
Last spring, Wofford held a conference to commemorate and study the 70th anniversary of what is commonly called South Carolina’s last lynching, the murder of Willie Earle. As part of the event, I was...
View ArticleArchiving from home
We are living in unprecedented times, that’s for sure. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, most of us at Wofford are working from home. We’ve taken an extra few weeks of spring break as we figure out...
View ArticleLiving through history
I’m taking a moment to pause from posting old items and stories from the College archives to talk about living through history, how archivists try to collect and document those experiences, and what...
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